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It had gone quite dark as he walked through the swamps. It was the shortest path to the other side, and he had to get there somehow. Getting a car and traveling through the road meant that he would have to waste an extra hour and a quarter on the journey. But he didn’t want to reach his destination late. He wished to be there as early as possible. His phone was dead, and so was his only option for some light.

“Welcome to my world” he heard a voice from behind.

He turned around to see two eyes shining in the darkness. There was no light around except for what moon was providing. There was a shadowy figure right in front of him. It was rather like a small person, but the shape resembled that of a tree.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Does it matter who I am? Do you know where you are?” it asked him.

“I asked you a question, didn’t I?” he asked again.

“Okay. I am the keeper of these swamps. I know who you are. I believe that you are here to steal the music of the swamps” the voice replied.

“I don’t understand. I was only taking a shortcut because I have an urgent thing to do. Please make way before I go through you” he said.

“You don’t walk through the swamps on a full moon. These are the days on which the swamps produce a certain kind of music which you are not allowed to hear. Well, hearing is stealing, and then I will have to punish you” said the keeper.

“Well, I don’t care about your music, but I have to go through the swamps to reach the village on the other side. I don’t care who are, because this is an emergency. So, stand aside, little person” he shouted.

“This won’t do you any good. The music of the swamps is sacred. This action of yours will have terrible consequences” the keeper warned him.

“I don’t give a damn” he said as he walked around the keeper to keep moving.

“And here you walk towards your end. Whatever you are hoping to achieve will never happen” the keeper was heard yelling.

He didn’t care at all. He did feel that the someone was making some music though. He wondered if the swamps do make some music. But he didn’t care to return or stop to think further. He kept walking, but the swamps seemed to extend a lot more than his expectations. This path no longer seemed to be the shorter one for him, as he felt that he should have taken the longer route by road. The music was getting stronger and soon, it turned into some kind of chant supported by some primitive musical instrument. He stopped to see a tree carved into something which resembled an entrance. He walked right in through it, but nobody got out through the other side.

“So, it is done?” the keeper was seen asking a huge shadow which covered the moon.

The next day, the body of a young man was found at the end of the swamps. The villagers attributed the death to a little shadowy demon which was believed live in the swamps. But the post-mortem revealed the cause of death to be because of hitting the head on a hard substance, which was believed to a thousands of centuries old holy rock on which he slipped and fell.

On the very next day, clouds covered everything on the sky, and a few villagers reported at the police station that they had seen a young man walking on the swamps with a singing young lady, and their feet never touched the floor. They also told the police that there was the music of the dead going on at the same time, which was a variation to the praise of the dead, that was sung when people died and their soul never really left this world. It was recorded as “the music of the swamps”.

1. Earth: As it is said and known, “for dust thou art, and to dust shalt thou return” is what the following scene reminds us about claiming our place back under the Earth and hope for a better time at the other world. There is stubbornness in this idea of truth, and the certainty of this return to the dust and dirt is as clear as the presence of these things on the surface of the Earth. The problem with humanity is its consistent loss of memory about this, and their pursuit of Carpe Diem. The photo was taken at a church cemetery around the city of Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England.

It is right into the insides of Earth that we have to return, for we are dust.

2. Water: You can see how well water could adapt and as much as it can become the life saver, it can be the destroyer. The unbelievable amount of suppleness can be attributed to this element which is a powerful force of nature which can make impact in its presence as well as the absence. The photo shows the brutal strength that the element of water came up with, during the monsoon rain of 2013 (there were worse situations during that period at the banks of the river Periyar) at the town of Aluva, near Cochin, Kerala, India.

Water as an element has its power to take over whenever it wishes to.

3. Fire: The element of fire always burns, either in the minds of the people or on the far away horizons, as the globe of fire reflects our motivation and desire, becoming the silent watcher of the human hatred for the other people of their kind. The energy of fire is something that we can take into our lives, without the negative sides, choosing not to burn the people around us with hatred based on religion, caste or race. There is the need for fire in our lives. The photo was taken at Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu, India.

The beauty of fire on the sky can’t be ignored by the eyes or any camera.

4. Air: There is freedom associated with air, something which is not easy in this world. We, human beings are bound by strange things and weird laws being passed, some of them making just the religion more important than humanity, and a few other making a few animals more significant that human beings. We should have chosen to air in this life, so free and with all the wisdom that is gained by traveling over long distances. In the photo, you can see how the vegetation bows down in reverence to the strength and wisdom of the element of air – photo taken at Ilaveezhapoonjira, Kerala, India.

When the element of air travel around freely with wisdom, take a bow.

There is only the human nature which is as unpredictable as the elements of nature, with compassion on one side and the tendency to be devastating with a certain amount of inherent evil which comes up here and there. There is something about the use of the word “nature” at both places. I hope you found the four photos of the elements of nature interesting – they have all been cropped and adjusted to a standard size so that there wouldn’t be any confusion. They were all taken by me only on my camera, Sony Cybershot DSC-W310..

There are times when you remember those lessons from teachers, and among them, there were games, about which I had written earlier. Along with Age of Empires‘ lessons in history, Age of Mythology‘s myth related classes and Tomb Raider‘s attempt to improve my puzzle solving skills to which Prince of Persia also contributed, there was always Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 Arena to teach how to control anger by helping us blow a computer bot’s head off and shout “Head Shot”. But among these games, what Mass Effect taught was more of an endless collection of things. Here are a few.

Spare some time to look at the beautiful world of Mass Effect – gaming can wait 😀

1. It is a big, strange world, and there is the need for tolerance: You take control of SSV Normandy, a powerful spaceship as Commander Shepard, with missions and a chance to meet different species of aliens along with completing the objectives. It is not so different from being in our own world except for the appearances of the aliens and all the shooting that can happen at anytime. We are all aliens on Earth as these people are when travelling through different parts of the galaxy. Every species is different, but we can get along with most of them with some tolerance.

Isn’t this the best time to travel to Mercury? Or should we wait for Santa Claus? 😀

2. Exploration is a must and without it, there is a void: The game’s vast universe is something to be explored. There are some strange planets, and we don’t know what awaits us there. The only thing that we can confirm is about the nature of the elements there. After we get there, there is the chance to get lost in the beauty of the detail there. There are times when creatures come out of nowhere, and the sand serpent kind of things might be common. We face the dangers of the world there as we struggle with the competition in the society in the world outside gaming. It is only then that we get better.

Here is another planet to explore, and a vehicle which suits the terrains of these worlds.

3. Choices make big impact, not just for you, but for many others: There are many choices that we have to make in this game. Not only our actions, but also our words make a difference. It can make a hostile drop his gun, one of our allies turn against us or a friend shoot us. It can lead to the death of one of our soldiers, and there are times when we have to choose a life over the other, or the life of someone over the mission. The game is full of choices, and I had never played a game which had made me choose so much and also suffer the consequences in a few more minutes of play. Not so different from real life, is it?

Make the choice. Meanwhile, note the point from Ashley Williams who speaks the truth 😀

4. There is always something more than what meets the eye: Mass Effect does have a twisted story, and a lot of effort has been put in there to make sure that it doesn’t end up as just another shooter with guns and blood making the rules. Even as things would eventually lead to an alien race called The Reapers who would come and harvest the developed life as they always did, there are lots of twists concerning the same, and our protagonist has to fight more than just the harbingers or the final agents of Armageddon.

An ancient civilization devastated. But it should still have a few surprises for our captain.

5. Settle your differences before it is too late: Mass Effect is a game that thrives on relationships. There is friendship as well as the romantic relationship that blossoms for the protagonist, and displeasure is another side of the same. Just like in the game, we are aware of a possible end of the world considering the recent terrorist attacks and acts of hatred – so it becomes our duty to be tolerant of others, and hope for a better future. There was something more about this, but by memory is a little faded.

You are already in the middle of a big battle. Better before death than later in afterlife.

I have never played another game like Mass Effect. Most of you have watched Interstellar, but this game which came in 2007 had a lot of space exploration elements. It is one of those rare games that give so much choice. There is the movie on the same, which is a work in progress – it is going to be huge. There is already an animated movie Mass Effect: Paragon Lost, and two sequels to the game. Do you know that Mass Effect 2 is considered one of the greatest games of all time? I have a lot less idea about Mass Effect 3, but all three games were received with a lot of acclaim.

Oh no! This is not that area of the galaxy where I parked my fantastic spaceship, or is it? 😀

*All images used in this blog post are the screenshots of my game-play from Mass Effect.